


No Cape (It's just a piece of clothe)

by Ash_Cassidy97



Series: Christmas and Birthday 2015-2016 [1]
Category: Daredevil (Comics), Daredevil (TV), Daredevil - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Also not a tag-come on fandom, Angst, Assassin Darcy, Assassin Karen, Assassins & Hitmen, BAMF Darcy Lewis, BAMF Jane Foster, BAMF Karen Page, BAMF Natasha Romanov, Character Study, Dirty Dancing, Drinking, Enthusiastic Consent, Everyone Is Poly Because Avengers, F/F, F/M, Fondue, Hook-Up, I take full responsibility for this thing: it was not the drunken make of Christmas, M/M, Multi, Not really sure it suits the tag but that was my logic, Pencil are dangerous, Polyamory, Red Room, Rimming, Steve Rogers is Not a Virgin, Steve Rogers is a little shit, Steve is a little shit, Vodka, Vodka parties happen, drunk Darcy, lube is your friend, why is that not a tag yet?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-30
Updated: 2015-12-30
Packaged: 2018-05-10 08:28:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5578510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ash_Cassidy97/pseuds/Ash_Cassidy97
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Character study of Karen Page, Darcy Lewis, and Natasha Romanov. Some other characters are included.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. We don't need a moral compass either (We have GPS)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [morbidcassanova](https://archiveofourown.org/users/morbidcassanova/gifts).



> The only explicit chapter is the last.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The only explicit chapter is chapter 3.

**Pencils: Karen Page**

Karen wrote in neat print.  She prefered pencil over pen. Straight lines, pencil sharpener nearby, ready to take Matt’s notes. Pencils were better stakes then pens. It was harder to jerk a pen just right so that it would break off, leaving a stake sticking out. Karen would never like guns, too loud, jerked a little when she pulled the trigger (not that she couldn’t aim perfectly).

 

She’d buried her own brutality, letting the shark bite against her rib cage. It turned out that she had blood on her hands and an iron core of justice. Long blond hair and skirts concealed her lack of morals where her city was concerned. A good man died for her. She wouldn’t forget that, that she was good enough for somebody to die for her, because of her, because she tried to do good things.

 

Guilt would be an insult to Ben’s choices, to her choices. Guilt means that you could’ve done something different, that you could’ve walked away.

 

“What ever happened to Wesley? I mean we can not be that lucky. I tripped on a loose apple on the street yesterday and fell down the subway steps. We can’t be that lucky,” Foggy groaned. “He’s gonna show up, isn’t he? Right at the worst moment. Oh god, my life is a movie. Steve Rogers does not have to deal with this shit.”

 

“I’m pretty sure his friend did show up at the worst moment,” Matt said.

 

He was a giant troll. Karen tossed another shot back. They were all at Josie's bar. Karen needed more alcohol for this.

 

Matt was a good man. He went to church. He prayed for forgiveness because he had lost the premise that he was forgivable, that he didn’t need to be saved because he wasn’t damned. He was a man who could look at an innocent woman and believe that she was innocent even when she really really wasn’t.

 

“Karen?” Foggy asked because he was a good person. He was Matt’s moral compass. He wasn’t her compass; she wouldn’t be foolish enough to let anybody dictate her actions again.

 

“It’s nothing.” Matt turned his head toward Karen. He’d lost his smile.

 

Shit, she thought. I got the goddamn Devil on my case.

 

Because yeah, she recognized him from his ass. She’s not ashamed. You’d look too. Foggy knew. She could tell, but she figured that was fair. They all had secrets. You don’t need to try to do good and be honest about it as well. Doing good was hard enough.

 

Karen didn’t admit anything. She laughed off Foggy’s concerns and controlled her heartbeat. She packed a bag that night and left the apartment. For all the terrible things that Matt had done, he didn’t know what it was like to write with a pencil and know in his bones, how to kill with it and smile. He could wash the blood off his hands. He could punch out his past. Karen’s showed up in her pencil lines, blond hair and honest smile. Given enough time with Foggy, he could heal. Karen would always wear a smile and write with pencil that could draw blood.

 

Just because the shark’s on land, doesn’t make it any less dangerous, she thought.

 

But she was sentimental. So, she stayed in the city, in streets filled with gunshots, where cops ran from danger and blind lawyers didn’t run away. Because it was Her City, the place where she chose justice over fear.

 

Matt caught up eventually in her shitty new apartment. She’d rented it under a false name. One room, shit apartment that didn’t lock. A blind man wouldn’t have any trouble breaking in. Karen sighed as Matt did just that.

 

He was wearing his mask. Well, Foggy would call it a mask. Karen, if she was more poetic, would call it the truth. However you saw it, it looked shitty and red.

 

“You killed Wesley. Kept it a secret from your friends.”

 

“You’re one to talk, Matt,” Karen murmured. She rubbed her mouth, wiping off a trace of tequila. She sighed heavily. “I’m not the best person. I didn’t need a reminder of it.”

 

“Yes, I’m such a good person that I dress up in spandex and beat other thugs.”

 

Matt wasn’t forgivable because he’d never done anything that needed forgiving, except the lies. But even that was only Foggy’s issue.

 

“I shot him in the chest a lot.” Matt was missing the point. She hadn’t shot to simply get away, she’d shot to permanently kill him without any remorse. The first had been a warning shot, a flashback. The others had been her killing her past, a blood-hungry cry.

 

Matt laughed. “I helped to level whole city blocks. I’m not gonna cast the first stone. Can you please come home?”

 

“I used to work for the same people the Black Widow did. It wasn’t the first time I shot somebody.”

 

“You know,” Matt said slowly. He’d sat down in one of her chairs. “I listened to you write your notes in the office. I could hear you pause sometimes, heartbeat steady, reverse the pencil and jab it at the air. I never saw you as harmless-”

 

“-You never saw me at all,” Karen joked. Foggy wore off on both of them.

 

“I thought you didn’t need more pain in your life, that’s why I didn’t tell you. I knew you knew, and I knew about you. I thought wrongly that our pretenses kept us safe.”

 

“I like being harmless Karen,” the woman whispered. “I like pretending that I don’t know how to kill you.”

 

She hadn’t fought when she was caught with the blood of an innocent man on her hands. She’d thought, finally, finally they’ve come to punish me for my crimes. But good men saved her, thought that she was worth saving. A curse, a gift.

 

Matt leaned forward. “You’re not going to break me or Foggy. I promise.” He smirked, self-acknowledging. “I flipped Foggy into a couch a week after I met him. He’d snuck up on me in college and I sent him flying into a brown couch. He’d brought Chinese and had wanted to surprise me.”

 

It wasn’t the best story. It wasn’t a fairy tale that you tell to a child. Hush, everything will be fine. You’ll never have to do that again. It was the truth. We’re broken and we chose to stay here because this is our home. We stand because we don’t know if anybody else will.

 

“I’ll come home,” Karen said at last. She decided that Matt was the best when he argued the truth. Foggy argued with fancy words, a style he'd picked up in school yards. Matt argued the way he fought, with simple, hard blows that came from nowhere.

 

It was hard to fight when you really didn’t want to and you weren’t being asked to.

 

Foggy hugged her the next day, and told her that he loved her no matter what. Foggy fought with love and constant sarcastic mother henning. The only thing that changed was that Karen started handing Matt’s ass to him.

 

They’d spar every few days. Foggy called it foreplay. He’d watch with a bowl of popcorn as a tiny woman and a blind man would tear each other apart. It was a prelude to something that Karen could never predict. She still kept her pencils sharp. Matt would joke that she should’ve been a true secretary sometimes, but she knew exactly where she belonged.

 

She had never lost her bitter edge. She tucked it under pencil skirts and easy to feel print. She tucked it between two men who thought they could save the whole world. She used it to help Matt grind his anger into dust and keep her city safe.

 

This is not your fairytale. Stop asking it to be one.

* * *

** Clicky Pens: Darcy **

Dary wrote in slashes of letters. Large lines that swished across the page. There was none of that teenage rounded letter shit. She used click pens. _Click-snap._ Jane was the one with the neat handwriting. Jane was the frontman of their gang. Darcy waved her hands, bitched about her pay, but never became the leader. She had enough of war.

 

Ironically, Darcy became the human-tech support. Jane never got that she was faking it so hard with waving hands and terrible driving. She picked a taser because you need contact for that, can’t hide from the person you killed and say they’re just another target when you watch them jerk under your hands. Jane just followed the Science and trusted that Darcy would keep up and stop her before she went too far.

 

She went to Culver University (Fuck you, Coulson, you were in the neighborhood, damnit) for Political Science with a minor in Physics. Darcy wanted to learn. She kept a 4.0 GPA, and knew enough science to kick Tony’s ass sometimes, but she kept her mouth shut. Jane didn’t know about the Physics, that Darcy wanted to be swept up into something so very far from Russia. She looked for things that Sparked, that caught people up in pure excitement. Her battle was long dead, until the alien god appeared from the sky and didn’t that just put a damper in her day.

 

Darcy bitched about her iPod and made a mental note to take Coulson down a peg when she could. She fought her wars with loudness, refusing to ever shut the hell up after the Red Room. Darcy Before was a sniveling thing, hands covered in blood but always ready to shoot the next person from behind a sniper rifle. She wrote in a pencil from the days when it was harder to write legibly in the dark with a pen. Well, fuck that. Goddamn clicky pens all the way.

 

Thor hadn’t freaked her out. She tazed him because he was a threat from another world and Jane was Right There. Jane was a scientific badass, but she could barely get down the stairs without tripping in the morning, for fucks sake. Bastard was lucky that she’d left him alive. Loki was lucky that he never met her.

 

She wore her nerd outfits with pride, but refused Starbucks. Russian ex-assassins have limits when somebody dilutes coffee that much. She wrapped herself up in scarfs and loud, and personified what she considered to be a 21st century badass. She could never be the Black Widow, but the hell if she was gonna sneak around like a woman ashamed of herself.

 

Ironically, Steve was unafraid of her. Ironically, you should know better to ever think that he was.

 

“Goddamn,” he told her. “I was worrying that all the fire gals were gone taken before I’d come along.”

 

”No offense Cap, but they might’ve just been running the other way when you referred to them as ‘dolls’.”

 

He grinned at Darcy. Peggy had not been easy, after all. “Wanna grab a drink sometime?”

 

“Sure, Rogers. But I have to warn you that I don’t put out until the third date.”

 

“Huh. Well, I’ve seen you three times. . .”

 

“I’ve been warned about your flirting by Bucky, which is good for you.”

 

“No fondue tonight?” He asked with a shit eating grin. Darcy met his eyes and didn’t miss her scope at all.

 

“How about a dance, Rogers?”

 

“I don’t know-” he started but stopped. Dacy had wrenched Captain America up behind her. They were both at a casual bar, because they were both somewhat unfortunately friends with Tony Stark.

 

Darcy led the soldier out onto the dance floor and smirked at him, throwing down a challenge in her smile. Steve was never gonna be able to resist a strong woman who moved like a fighter. Darcy was never gonna be able to resist a man who needed to be reminded that there was life after war. Catch it in your veins, let the infection spread.

 

She swung his arms around her neck and gripped his ass in her hands. Bucky stared and then winked as he passed her by with a bimbo, but Darcy snatched up his hands. The hell if she wasn’t going to be selfish when she could. The hell if she was going to let people make the same mistakes she did. Bucky smirked against her neck and Steve pressed her back into Bucky. Darcy smiled and bumped them in time to the music.

 

She hadn’t gone chancing for a war, another battle. She’d gone to school, to learn, to remember the small things like exams and holy shit, yes there is an Econ essay due tomorrow. Don’t go looking for heros. Heroes are boring. Look for people.

* * *

 

** Electronic Devices: Natasha **

Natasha preferred electronic devices for her written work. Karen had traded one war for another and Darcy had taken on the role of protector. Natasha fought the same war, different side. She knew that her war would never be over, and she would have to follow it into the 21st Century. Maybe she was the best, maybe she had learned a great personnel lesson.

 

She didn’t give a damn.

 

She’d fought battles with knives, tasers and ballerinas. She’d fought Fury’s battle. She’d fought Coulson’s and Clint’s because she’d won hers.

 

Natasha was herself on the battlefield, in the living room, and sitting around a table with Clint and Phil. She had nothing left to prove. She was everything she could be, and fuck anybody who said any different.

 

She believed in atonement. Natasha figured she was good at killing, and it would ironic to use the same skills the Red Room taught her to bring hope to others.

 

Natasha had come to Shield longing for a prison. Clint had taught her to escape and Phil had given them both a home. Debt wasn’t something she owed to the world, in Phil's eyes at least. The United States Government would disagree. The Avengers couldn’t give a fuck, Steve had told her as much.

 

“We kill in war and in secret. You are not responsible for the past anymore.”

 

“A precious sentiment.”

 

Steve shrugged. “I’ve done terrible things in war.”

 

That was enough for him. It was enough to say that he is a better man now because he had made it true. Steve had started his war in schoolyards. He didn’t need the frontlines to prove that he would keep getting up.

 

Natasha had fought her battle and let it follow her around.

 

No, she had fought her battle, won, and went on to fight more for others because it was always the same war to her: the right one, the one where people were helped. Her choice, her decision. Don’t paint her the hero, paint her as a person, somebody who was trying to be better, trying to be a person. Maybe that’s the definition of a hero, if you’re not one to hope for a cape and a moral compass.

 

“I still feel guilty.”

 

“Yeah, I figure the only way to clear up the guilt is to do some good,” Clint had told her years ago. She knew that the best way to do it was to help Steve, the man who had a moral compass and could out-cuss Tony Stark at times. Natasha never did find out if Clint lost his guilt before Loki. They’d both lost Phil then and didn’t find him for months (they never really found him at all. You can’t find people who are deliberately lost or you can’t save them).

 

She remembered the Red Room. It wasn’t red. There was little blood on the walls even (they were taught to kill without a mess). It was cold and dank. Most days, Natasha didn’t bother to stop and mourn, and think ‘oh jolly gee, glad I survived that.’ She drank her tea and went on, because life doesn’t end when you want it to. There was a reason why she followed Steve. They both knew the lesson in their bones.

 

“I’m coming with you to find Bucky,” Natasha said at last. “You’re likely to jump from planes without me there.”

 

“Hmm, you just like me for my explosions.” Steve was easy. He was a man of two worlds, and fought to keep it that way. Sam Wilson was also strongly against Starbucks and had Opinions on Steve’s stupidity, which put him firmly in the good guys category.

 

She didn’t need another moral compass. Phil had been Clint’s and see what that did to him. She needed a friend, somebody who knew long nights and fights that needed to be fought, and somebody who knew that not everybody makes it home.

 

It was a good enough battle as any.

 

Find a war and fight it with friends.

 


	2. James (Steve Rogers was a negative influence)

After the Battle of New York, the women had found each other in the wreckage. Darcy couldn’t hide that she had taken out a bunch of aliens, and Karen was fighting beside a suited up Matt. They had worked out one day a week to go to a bar and talk in Russian and drink Vodka. Non-Russians were not invited to what turned into a card night.

 

It took Steve precisely a month to find his friend. Barnes let himself be found because he felt like a lost cat: cold and curious. It took three weeks after that to allow Barnes to trail Natasha to the bar.

 

“Who’s the friend?” Karen asked in perfect Russian.

 

“The Winter Soldier,” Natasha responded carefully in English.

 

“Of course he is,” Karen muttered. Darcy snorted. She had made his acquaintance in bed a few days ago, along with Steve. She’d had to fill out a fucking form for a threesome.

 

“Hi,” the man said cheerfully. “I go by either James or Barnes now.”

 

“Nice to know,” Darcy drawled.

 

“Hmmm.” He flashed his teeth at her. She smirked back. The other two women rolled their eyes. Natasha dealt.

 

“Rummy, three card pick up. Card counting is encouraged. Losers have to buy the next round of drinks. One loser equals one round of drinks. The winner must drink all the drinks.”

 

“Let the hangover comense,” James said cheerfully. 

 

Darcy had all them beat in the end.

 

“What did you drink?” Steve asked when they came home. “Gasoline?”

 

“It was damn good,” Darcy grumbled.

 

“Come on,” Steve muttered. He’d returned to pretending that he was innocent after that night in the bar, because he was a moron.

 

“Why didn’t we ever go on that date?” Darcy inquired.

 

“Because-”

 

“Because Steve doesn’t know what to do when a gal likes both him and his best friend.”

 

“Ah, so you’ve had more experience in this area?”

 

“More than you apparently,” James replied.

 

“I’ve had sex,” Steve whined. “I have. Tony and all of you lose the bet on my virginity.”

 

“Yeah, only cuz I got it,” James muttered. Darcy stared. “It was summer and he was naked. You would have been tempted too.”

 

“Not saying I wouldn’t have been, but-just-wow.”

 

“Shut up,” Steve growled. James smirked at him.

 

“So, orgies,” Darcy began but stopped. There wasn’t really a good follow-up to proposing a threesome to people who were in love.

 

“We had one. I’d like to do it again some time,” Steve picked up because he was a kind soul like that.

 

“Good by me,” James said.

 

“I don’t do casual,” Darcy said firmly. “I’ve done it. I’ve done one-night stands, and I am not going there again for repeat performances. Name your terms.”

 

Steve blinked at that. “I’ve sex,” he started. “I do not do casual. I’ve had sex with James and Peggy. That is it.”

 

“Peggy knew about us,” James picked up. “You would’ve loved her.”

 

“I’m not going to be second-best.”

 

“You’re not,” James reassured her. Peggy was neat clothes, perfect hair and a right hook to the face. Darcy was shrapnel under the skin, drigging in, making you realize that you’re truly alive. 

 

“Alright then. Sex?” she asked.

  
“Later,” Steve said. “Bed now. Come on.” They fell into bed and slept, safe for the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this doesn't do a great job of talking about Barnes. Not really sorry about it, but sorry anyway.


	3. Coda: Sex

Steve had a rough tongue. Darcy’s breath caught in her throat- a swear on her tongue. Bucky smirked.

-  
Karen moaned. Goddamn, those lawyer tongues paid off. She locked her legs around Matt’s head.

“Don’t break his head,” Foggy murmured, doing something with his fingers that oh.  
-  
Natasha swore and flipped Clint on his back. Phil chuckled. No physical activity for him for a week. Natasha smirked. She twisted her hips around Clint’s cock.

“Damn it, Tash, stop teasing,” he moaned weakly, keeping a loose grip on her hips.

“I think you’ve both a tease,” Phil groaned, one hand at his waist.

“Cut that,” Natasha ordered. Phil moaned weakly but stopped moving his hand.  
-  
“Easy,” Matt murmured as Karen kissed him a foot below his mouth. No gag reflex. Foggy’s eyes nearly rolled back in his head as Karen rolled her thumb over his cock. Matt shuddered weakly, and rolled his hips.

“Goddamn,” Foggy swore softly. He already had a condom on and by Karen’s gesturing was encouraged to seat himself in her.

Matt stroked her hair. She swirled his tongue and Matt groaned, whimpering and cutting the sound off so she did it again. Foggy breathed as he entered Karen, sliding in and out. Matt licked his lips, tasting the air.  
-  
Darcy came with a grunt, twisting her hips against Steve’s mouth.

“Damn,” she said. “I wanted to fuck and come with one of you.”

“How about both of us next time, and we put on a show tonight?” Bucky asked. He rubbed a finger against Steve’s rim, and cracked out some lube.

“Hell yes,” Darcy practically shouted. Both men smiled.  
-  
Nobody had a cape, but everybody was out of fucks to give.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, still can not write porn well but I tried.
> 
> List of videos I had to watch to keep a straight face: the 40% (about SEALS), Can you hear me? music vid, Hannah Witton vids and some Harry Potter thing? There is no shame here, like leave all shame at the door.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you, everybody. This is dedicated to thelightwithin as her Christmas present. 
> 
> I will say that I loved writing it and I had the idea banging around in my head since Thanksgiving. I kinda love these women and thank god I got to play around with them. Felicity Smoak got nothing on this. Thanks for reading. Please leave a review. 
> 
> I did try for cool fonts, but gave up because HTML sucks more than I remember. For reference: Caveat for Karen, Nothing You Could Do for Darcy, and Times New Roman for Natasha.
> 
> I wish I knew how long this was gonna become, but to be honest I knew by the fifth page. These woman kinda stole my brain. Goddamn, this thing may eventually lead to longer fics and I apologize in advance. I also apologize to all those waiting for me to update other things (literally one person).
> 
> This is all inspired by my daily trudge in school, specifically my math instructor and the pencils (my whole class is Karen at this point).


End file.
